The Deep End
by marinrivers
Summary: "We're both waiting for daddy." She could tell by the look on Jackson's face that he missed the point. Maybe that wasn't the worst thing. He was recovering. Not only that, but he was in rehab. This was the worst possible time to talk about having a child.
1. Chapter 1

"We're both waiting for daddy."

She could tell by the look on Jackson's face that he missed the point. Maybe that wasn't the worst thing. He was recovering. Not only that, but he was in rehab. This was the worst possible time to talk about having a child. They hadn't even _talked_ about the possibility - not seriously, anyway. They hadn't been trying, and she was of the understanding that neither of them were even thinking about it. This simply wasn't the time.

She decided not to press it. He was getting out in three weeks, which gave her that much time to figure out what she wanted to do. Instead, she shifted the conversation to something a bit less complex. Music. She had found a song of his while she was cleaning up the house, one of the few things that could keep her occupied on the rare occasions that she was home. The tour kept her out of the house for the most part, but there wasn't much to do when she didn't have anything scheduled, which left her subject to the intrusive thoughts and worries that she had grown accustomed to, not only in relation to him, but in relation to her father as well.

Addiction was an ongoing theme when it come to the men in her life, and she was always the one left to clean up the messes they left behind. Her father didn't have the same privileges Jackson did. He was a driver, making just enough money for them to live comfortably. Fancy rehabilitation programs with swimming pools and support groups were never an option for him. Alcoholics Anonymous was, but he never wanted to go. He just kept drinking: on the road, at the bar, at home. Ally was always the one to take care of him, always having some kind of dinner on the table to help him soak up the alcohol, and making sure he didn't hurt himself between the front door and his bedroom. He eventually learned the hard way, the hard way being loss of business, a night in jail, and a DWI on his record. Things changed drastically after that.

She wondered if things would be the same way with Jack. If the worst was already behind them. It would be difficult to top the incident that sent him to rehab in the first place: getting shitfaced before his performance and being so out of it that he peed himself on stage. Still, she knew how hard it would be to stay away. She knew how accessible drugs could be to someone like him. Alcohol was even worse. It was everywhere, available to anyone twenty-one or older. She could protect him from it when she was around, but when she wasn't? What would stop him from relapsing?

That wasn't the point though. The point was that he had written a beautiful song: one that she assumed was about herself. "You writing love songs?" she teased, laying the composition flat so that they could both look at it. She never doubted his feelings for her. Even when they were fighting, she always knew he loved her. The song only solidified that, lyrics painting a bleak picture of how he would feel if he lost her. The question now, was if he could extend his love to someone else.

* * *

"Well, I told him."

She was back at home now, curled up on the couch with Charlie at her feet and Ramon at her side. He was the only other person that knew she was pregnant.

"What did he say?" The male asked cautiously. He could tell there was something off—for all the time they spent together, he prided himself on being able to read his best friend like a book—but he didn't know what it was.

Ally sighed, shaking her head. "He didn't get it."

There was a pause, and then Ramon spoke again. "What?"

"He didn't get it. I called him daddy and he smiled and moved on."

"Ally..."

"I shouldn't have told him anyway."

She couldn't shake the fear that this would mess things up for him. That this would be the thing that undid all of his progress, destroyed what was left of his career, and took their relationship with it.

"Are you going to try again?"

She wasn't sure. Maybe this was a sign that it wasn't meant to be: that they weren't ready to be parents just yet.

"Not until he gets out... and not until I'm sure he can handle it."

"And if he can't?"

She couldn't give him a definitive answer. She wanted this baby, but they were nowhere near prepared for one. Jack would've understood if she decided not to have it. Jack didn't even have to _know_ if she decided not to have it. Luckily, she didn't have to make the decision now. She still had three weeks. She would be nine weeks pregnant by then—well below the legal limit. She still had to answer Ramon's question though.

"We'll see," she replied, pursing her lips. There was a silence on her friend's end. She couldn't blame him. How was he supposed to respond to that? He supported her right to choose, but lying to Jack? It seemed like it would cause more problems than it would solve. It was ultimately up to her, but he hoped she would make the right choice... whatever it was.

"I support you either way," he reassured, offering her a small smile. "But if you _do_ decide to keep it, I call dibs on being godfather."

* * *

The European tour was a pipe dream. With everything that was going on—Jack in rehab and their impending parenthood—Ally didn't know if they could make it work. Still, she hated the idea of letting the opportunity go to waste. This was her career, one that she was lucky to have in the first place. If she hadn't been at the drag bar that night, or if she hadn't performed, she would still be working at the restaurant, dreading each and every second between when she clocked in and when she clocked out. Letting all of her progress go to waste would've been exactly that: wasteful.

At the same time, she didn't want to undo Jack's progress. She couldn't leave him by himself on another continent, and she didn't have time to fly back and forth between performances. If she was going to Europe, he would be coming with her. That way, she could be there for him if he relapsed again, and she wouldn't be the reason why that happened. She loved her career, but he was her priority.

Rez had come over to discuss business and hear the new song she was working on, though their conversation was mostly about the former. That was just how he was. Everything was so calculated: dyeing her hair, hiring dancers, performing without Jack. It was hard to argue that any of those things were objectively bad, but she often found herself wondering if her input really mattered, or if she was just a cog in the machine: one of many moving parts, but of no real significance compared to the others. It definitely felt like that sometimes.

When she brought up the possibility of Jack joining her in Europe, that feeling returned. Rez wanted nothing to do with it. He wouldn't even consider the possibility. She knew she wasn't going to win this argument. He was the puppeteer, and she was his marionette. She couldn't do anything without him pulling the strings.

So, she gave up, both on the conversation and on the topic. If going to Europe meant leaving Jack, then she wouldn't go.

"If you can't make that happen, then fucking cancel the tour. I don't know what to tell you."

Rez left in a huff, slamming the door behind him and leaving Ally to cry at her piano.

She wished it hadn't come to this. She wished that she could go on tour without having to worry about her husband's health. She wished that she could take him with her. She wished something—anything—could be different.

The countdown to Jack's return had just passed the seven-day mark. He would be home within the week, and then she would have to talk about all of this with him. He didn't know about the baby, but he knew she was supposed to be going to Europe. He would know something was wrong if the supposed tour dates came around and she was still at home with him. This was a conversation she couldn't avoid—and she was going to have to lie.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I'm so glad to be writing again! I stayed as in line with canon as I could for this first chapter, but I'll be breaking away more and more as the story goes on. Please let me know what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

**WARNING:** This chapter features suicidal and abortion ideation. Please proceed at your own risk.

* * *

Jackson's return home was as good as Ally could have expected it to be. Bobby dropped him off, having wanted some alone time with his brother. Their relationship was still strained but was doing better now that Jack was in recovery. Everything seemed to be better now that Jack was in recovery. He seemed happier. He was getting back into music. They weren't completely out of the woods yet, but they were doing better. Maybe a child wouldn't have been the worst thing after all.

She was warming up to the idea. She still wasn't sure what it would mean for their lives, but she didn't fear it as much as she did when she first found out. It felt like something she could work with. Something that they could both work with. While it had never been far from her mind, she found herself thinking more and more about it as the days passed: watching Jackson with Charlie and imagining him being just as doting with their baby, thinking about names, eyeing the spare bedroom in their house and wondering what it would look like with a nursery set and pastel walls.

Of course, she still hadn't told him. She was waiting for the right time, and there never seemed to be a right time. With the North American leg of her tour coming to a close, any time that she didn't spend with him was dedicated to rehearsals and planning. The label wasn't happy with her decision to scrap the European leg, and was goading her to come up with new music to release in its place. She made up her mind to tell him when the tour was over. At least then, she would have one less thing to worry about.

She was out running errands when Rez came to the house. Jackson was home, though, and answered the door for him.

* * *

"I have some good news."

Ally couldn't see the look on Jackson's face, but he looked terrified. The conversation with Rez was playing on a painful loop in his mind. He wanted to brush it off, and to move on as if it hadn't happened to begin with, but he couldn't help but wonder if he was right. As of late, his influence on Ally's career had been on decline. Rez pulled the strings, Ally played her part, and he was just along for the ride. Even then, he ruined things for her. His mere presence in his life was a detriment to hers.

"Yeah?" he asked, terrified of what's to come.

"Mmhmm. I'm not gonna go to Europe. We're gonna cancel the rest of the tour and I'm just gonna be here all summer. Isn't that great?"

The look on Jackson's face remained. He felt like crying; there was a lump in his throat that he couldn't swallow, and the tears were already welling up in his eyes. He swallowed thickly and shook his head. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened. The label just loves the record and it's doing so well that they wanna keep with the momentum and have me make another one. Rez is super psyched, so it'll be great." Avoiding eye contact was a conscious decision. She couldn't look him in the eye and lie to him. She hadn't even lied yet and she already felt terrible about it. This was how it needed to be though. She needed to lie to him, because she couldn't tell him the truth. There was no telling what hearing that he was deliberately disinvited from the tour would do to his mental health. He was doing well, but then again, he always seemed to be doing well before he fell off. She didn't want something as minor as this to be the cause of his relapse: not now, when they had bigger problems to deal with.

"So tonight's gonna be my last show. Going out with a bang at the Forum."

The only thing stopping his tears from flowing was the fact that Ally didn't know what he did. She wasn't there for his conversation with Rez, and since she was lying to him, she probably didn't even know it happened in the first place. He wished that she would just be honest with him: to tell him that he was the reason she was cancelling the rest of her tour. He already knew, but he needed to hear it from her.

"There's something else too," she told him, finally meeting his eyes. He looked upset, but she assumed it was because of what she had already told him. "Yeah, what is it?" Jackson wasn't sure what to expect at this point. Rez hadn't told him anything else.

There was a pause on her end as she tried to form the words. She knew what she wanted to say. She had already told him once before though, to be fair, she hadn't been very direct about it. She snuggled up closer to him, not stopping until her lips were an inch away from his ear. "You're gonna be a daddy, Jackson Maine."

He pulled away, not because he didn't like the news, but because he needed to process it. She was pregnant. She was pregnant, and she was cancelling the European leg of her tour. She was pregnant and cancelling the European leg of her tour, and he had played a hand in both of those things.

Ally pulled away as well, interpreting his sudden distance as rejection. Emerald hues settled on their bedspread, not wanting to see the look on his face. He was usually quick to express his feelings, good or bad, so his sudden pensiveness terrified her. She knew she shouldn't have told him. He wasn't ready. "It's okay if-"

"That's great," he finally said, pulling her close to him again.

"Great?" She couldn't hide her shock if she tried. How he managed to be so slow but so abrupt was a mystery to her, but she was going to take it. "You think it's great?"

He hesitated again. She wished he wouldn't do that to her: that he would just say what he was thinking.

It was only a few seconds before he responded again, but it felt like hours. "Is that why you're cancelling your tour?"

She shook her head. The tour was scrapped the second Rez implied that Jack wouldn't be able to go. Her pregnancy was a factor of a factor, if it could be considered a factor at all. "No, it's like I told you. The label wants to cancel. They don't even know I'm pregnant." That was another thing she was going to need to do if they decided to follow through with this. She wasn't sure how they would take it, but she doubted they would be happy about it. The persona they had created for her couldn't support a pregnancy, and she couldn't spend as much time working if she had to care for a child.

The happy family she had imagined was already falling apart.

"Jack, I won't go through with this if you're not ready," she told him. "We don't need to do this now. We have time, and I have the right to choose."

Jackson shook his head. "It's not that, Ally. I just don't want you throwing your life away."

She understood, but that didn't mean she wasn't sure. "Throwing my life away..." she repeated, as if she was trying to confirm what he had just said. She'd heard him loud and clear. He thought the baby was going to ruin her life.

"You've got something great. You won a Grammy the first time you were nominated. I can't go anywhere without hearin' that song of yours... I don't want you to lose that."

She nodded. He was right, but for some reason, she couldn't internalize it. "Okay," she replied, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

"Okay?" he asked, arm still wrapped around her, not quite ready to let her go.

"Mmhmm." It wasn't okay, but she wasn't going to say that. Not now. Not when her only counter argument was how cute their child would be. Besides, she couldn't talk for much longer. She had to leave for her last show soon, and after this conversation, she was going to need a moment to get herself together.

There had to be more to it than 'okay.' He saw the way her demeanor changed in the minutes between the revelation and his full response. It wasn't okay. The thing was, he wasn't sure how to make it better without making something else worse. Maybe he just needed to remove himself altogether: to let her do what was best for her without any influence on his part. He had done everything he could for her, and now it seemed that he was only dragging her down.

"I have to go soon... but I want you to come with me. We'll sing 'Shallow' together. The fans'll go crazy to see you."

_She wanted him to go with her?_ He didn't feel like doing much of anything right now. He felt like had had been hit by a truck. Not only that, but he felt like she would be better off without him.

"C'mon, Cowboy," she prompted, hoping he would agree to join her.

"Yeah, okay. Why not."

* * *

**Author's note:** I'm trying to intertwine the canon and AU elements so the transition from "what if" to alternate storyline will feel a little more seamless. I hope I've done a good job of that so far. The next chapter will most likely be the last one featuring scenes from the movie. After that, it'll be entirely AU and the chapters will be a bit longer as well!

Also, if you're able to see the encore version of the movie, I highly recommend it! It's only 12 extra minutes spread throughout the movie, but it's a good twelve minutes.


End file.
